Part of owning a chicken flock is dealing with some undesirables. We have to figure out what to do with the roosters (2) that have blossomed from our 10 eggs we hatched this summer. One chick died a few months after she was born, so out of nine remaining birds, it looks like we got ourselves three roosters. That’s a 30 percent rate.
Again, it’s why I stress that backyard chicken owners need to know how to handle roosters. They don’t belong in an urban setting (unless you have tons of acreage) and good luck trying to get rid of them (if you doubt me just check out the “Free Roosters” ads on Craigslist.)
Not only are roosters loud (and they are, here’s a link to one of our newest neighborhood annoyances) but they also can cause a lot of damage to your flock. (BTW, that’s Zelda who mooned us and then fell off the perch at the end of the video – too bad they don’t have an America’s Funniest Home Chicken Videos show.)
Find out what's happening in Merrimackfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Roosters mate by mounting the squatting female. Roosters don’t have penises (prompting my sons to tell me that “cocks don’t have cocks”) what they do is line up their cloaca with the female’s cloaca, once they are in the general area they release the sperm that will inseminate the female.
Sounds relatively easy until you liken the act to having sex while riding on a bucking bronco. To help make sure that things work out right, the rooster holds on with his (large) feet and grabs the females neck feathers.
Find out what's happening in Merrimackfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
What you get is damage to the hens that looks like this the photo to this post.
That hen has something our rooster wants.
You can always tell the girls that are in high demand because often they will have open bloody wounds. This doesn’t hurt their egg laying ability (in fact now, they have fertilized eggs if you wanted to try incubating them) but it does open up the girls to infections, skin disease, and overall stress (which could end up impacting their egg laying ability in the long run.)
So when I say that we can’t have roosters in our flock, I’m not just talking about the noise (although that would be reason enough, trust me – go back and listen to that bad boy again) I’m also talking about flock health. If I were a breeder, it would be one thing, but I’m not. I’m just a chicken owner trying to raise my birds for pets and eggs in an urban backyard setting. And it’s something I want to continue doing which is why we have to get rid of our roosters.
